Housing, what do you think?

There’s still a lot of anger and disappointment of the housing system SE decided to implement, I was wondering how players would respond to some of the housing system that Aion had. I’m not suggesting this as the system FFIV should use, I just want to know how players think about it. Mainly the acquisition and recycling of houses.

I haven’t played that many MMO’s with housing but Aion and FFXIV were the only ones with as set limit number of housing. However, the housing system on Aion is relatively fluid; houses will change hands if not maintained, opening up for active players. It has been awhile since I logged on Aion, but here’s some information on it and most haven’t changed much from what I remembered:
http://aion.wikia.com/wiki/Housing

First the housing system is on a bidding system, which takes place over a week – not the first come first serve system which was horrible with all the server crashes here on FF immediately followed the patch, and not to mention was like 2-5am in the morning for people in NA. And preventing last minute “sniper bids”, when a bid is placed when there are 5 minutes or less remaining, the auction will be extended, up to a maximum of 30 minutes. At the end of the auction, the character with the highest bid will receive the house. And I would say to add something to prevent this being abused by groups of people that just gather up houses to sell them, like set a maximum starting bid, e.i. the maximum price of the starting price (5m for small etc) for other players to bid upwards beyond it.

Next is the clearing of inactive houses, there are numerous unused houses especially in the original wards on Balmung owned by inactive FCs. Aion has a weekly maintanence fee system that if the house maintenance fee is not paid over 2 weeks (you get warning every week), ownership is revoked and the house is listed for auction. 90% of the house's cost is refunded to the owner. As for people that wish to take extended break from the game, you can pay maintanence fee in advance, I remember I was able to stack several weeks of payment in advance – never really checked the upper limit on how long you can pay in advance. Even if you lose the house, you get some of your money back and hopefully able to find another house being put up for auction.

p.s. I am a small house owner myself in ffxiv, but I have friends that wish to buy houses and can't because even the large houses are sold out on Balmung

I'd need to see some numbers in FFXIV's version of this before I could decide if I'd be okay with it or not. How much are we talking for starting bid and maintenance fees?

I also see some problems coming with this. One is that a lot of people want a house next to a friend, or their FC. But if they can't afford the upkeep, then they'll have to move away from their friends. If they want to be together again, they'll have to find a new place to buy houses near each other.

Another problem would be that most people will not find a maintenance fee to be very fun. Quite the contrary; trying to keep your house, the game might start to feel like a job. This is something that I think most players would not enjoy.

To propose some numbers of my own, if we had a 1 million gil weekly maintenance fee for a mansion, I think that would be a little steep, but affordable. If there was no upper limit on how long in advance you can pay it, I could see myself paying for a whole year so I don't have to worry about it. Yeah, I guess I'd be fine with that.

Still, I have a feeling a lot of people would not like it.

The solution is to add more houses and private house sharing, not charge people a rental fee. Momomi is right, paying a fee will make it feel like a job. Since the housing system originally didn't have a maintenance fee, it would be totally unfair for SE to just add it.

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Originally Posted by Domira

The solution is to add more houses and private house sharing, not charge people a rental fee. Momomi is right, paying a fee will make it feel like a job. Since the housing system originally didn't have a maintenance fee, it would be totally unfair for SE to just add it.

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If it was just that easy...
SE has continued to use server limitations to hold off on adding more wards and have stated that they believe they have fulfilled demand for the the number of housing and is looking to expand the functionality of housing rather than adding more wards.

Yes, I understand maintenance fee would not be popular, but as of right now, there is no way to put houses that have pretty much been abandoned by inactive FCs back into the market. SE had originally planned to force houses to be relinquished after 30-35 days of inactivity but scrapped the idea after too many complaints. This is not very sustainable as on populated servers as all the houses are gone already - even the large.

I have played a few MMOs where player housing/rooms does not cost anything, but they are also typically instanced and unlimited in terms of numbers. For MMOs that have limited number of housing, you need a way to reintroduce housing back into the market else newer players/free companies would never be able to own one.

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Originally Posted by Chihaya

If it was just that easy...
SE has continued to use server limitations to hold off on adding more wards and have stated that they believe they have fulfilled demand for the the number of housing and is looking to expand the functionality of housing rather than adding more wards.

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Then start up a massive wave of complaints and try to get SE to change things for the better, rather than suggesting a system that'll punish the playerbase even more. We pay monthly fees, and SE is happy to rake in more money via paid retainers and cash shop items, even selling dye for extra profit - so they should put some of that extra profit back and upgrade their servers, rather than recycling their server limitations excuse.

I wish the housing system have apartment system like GTA V Online. You know you can purchase room that have unlimited room that anyone can purchase, then your friends can view inside your room by ring the bell and they can enter your room.

Before they potentially add any form of repossessing land, they should give us the option to sell it.

As I said in another thread just the other day, it could be a set price that we're able to sell it at, e.g., the minimum server value. So about 40 million for a large on the more expensive servers. The seller would receive 66-90% of this gil, while the rest is removed from the game. While this alone would not solve all of the issues, it would help put some land back on the market.

Also, I think instead of outright losing your land, it should automatically be put up for sale after a set amount of time, with the owner receiving the gil from the sale upon their return. Perhaps it could be mailed to them. Ideally, I think this amount of time should be at least 3 months (or, 95 days). Personally, I would prefer 6 months.

The combination of both of these should help alleviate some of the problems while keeping current land owners fairly happy.

Obviously, even with these in place, we still need more plots available.

selling for gil is against their principles, a housing credit system would fit better with how they want the system.

they can take the land back but you get credits that can be used to buy another plot, you should also be able to use these credits to upgrade to a larger sized plot.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

selling for gil is against their principles, a housing credit system would fit better with how they want the system.

they can take the land back but you get credits that can be used to buy another plot, you should also be able to use these credits to upgrade to a larger sized plot.

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I think more people would be willing to sell-up if they could get money back. I think a lot of people in the initial land-rush bought property on the expectation that they'd make their money back via gardening, then found out how complicated and time consuming profitable gardening actually is - I'm pretty sure some of my neighbours are still in game but their houses stand empty because they don't want to lose out on their investment completely but they don't want to deal with the current hassle it is to resell.

I wish the housing system was a duplicate of Rifts dimensions, instanced, 100% customizable and highly player creative, with huge item limits.

Seeing a zone full of homes that are almost identical sadly, is kinda OK don't get me wrong ,but a zone of homes and 9/10x , zero ppl is just a waste of space with many many design limitations attached.

Revoking a players home if not around for X amount of time? no no...do not agree with that. IMO that's se limiting problem that THEY need to eliminate by forking out the $ and providing enough housing for the game as years go by.
Once bought the home should be theirs for good OR if revoked then the market value of the home and all contents value should be mailed to the account in gil by se them selves.

TBH I think housing is too basic, too limiting and completely non creative compared to other games.

SE has some wonderful talent..they COULD have made the housing so engaging, allow for so so much player creativity in a setting that would be so beautiful/scary/erie/whimsical, whatever the PLAYER made it.

Its a shame that they limited it to a drop and plop system of all premade "exact same as any other players" design.

Such a waste of their artistic talent (and ours). FFXIV graphics are gorgeous, far far above Rift , but the constant limit limit and simplistic design of housing in general makes it look and feel far older then some games that have been around for ages.
/sadface

Personally I would HATE a fee. I own a small house and after buying it I am absolutely broke, 100% no gil for a while, couldn't even afford teleporting. I'm not a crafter, I'm not a spirit bonder, etc, I have no way of affording any type of fee, at all. Only way I could even afford a house was literally months of saving, with my boyfriend, it's an FC house, but our FC only has two members (with two inactive members). Keeping every single gil we had, from dungeons, quests, selling stuff from retainers, etc. It's been a couple of months since then and I only have 300k to my name.

I think the maintenance fee will just cut out a chunk of the population that don't take the game as a job and aren't investing time to make gil, like me. I just wanna play and have a cute place to chill while waiting for queue. I don't want to lvl a crafter yet, I don't plan on grinding dungeons for spirit bonding etc. The houses will be restricted to those who do have an income in game, I'd lose my house asap, don't think that's honestly fair.

No, never, A rental fee would turn the game into a job, as someone who works IRL that would completely void any reason for me to buy a house.
People already have their time full with raiding, dailys, hunts, relic and do you reason think people will want to waste their time saving cash up for a rental fee?

Squares getting subscription fee cash, there is no excuse not to add more servers for more housing.
As they would add more servers for more players if it meant more money for them.